The Miracle Moment

Having healthy relationships is one of my highest goals on earth. I love people - they bring joy and adventure to life – but relating to others can also carry loads of complications, difficulties, and conflicts. The countless emotions and thoughts that swirl inside each one of us, combined with our experiences and the forces that constantly shape and circulate around us, make it almost impossible to live in perfect peace with others.

When I was in my early 40s, I experienced a season that could have undermined my most important connections. For several years, my sister endured a terrible disease, and during that time, my family and I were in a near-constant state of stress on many fronts. After she passed away, maybe because I felt so depleted emotionally, I sometimes found myself avoiding the hard work required for conflict resolution. Side-stepping discord felt like peace until I began to see that hiding from conflict wasn’t the same as peace. The tendency not to fully engage and reconcile issues, even small day-to-day ones, eventually erodes the quality of relationships.

Once I recognized that I was attempting to maintain relational harmony in the wrong ways, I managed to improve. However, there still seemed to be hurdles I didn't understand and couldn't overcome. Then Nicole Unice published her book The Miracle Moment. Reading it armed me with pieces of the healthy relationship puzzle that I had been missing.

Unice’s knowledge of healthy relationships (business and personal) and teachings on implementing positive changes stem from her multiple roles as a coach, pastor, wife, and mother. But it is Unice’s extensive experience as a counselor that especially shows and shines in the book. Having read two of her other books (The Struggle is Real and Brave Enough), I knew I could expect to glean some helpful information from The Miracle Moment. But I wasn't expecting to feel like I had been through a month-long, healthy relationship boot camp.

The main point Unice makes in the book is that relational health improves during pivotal times of rising conflict when space is given for "miracle moments." On page 13, she defines these moments as the points in conversations "when you want to shut up, give up, or blow up-and you lean in instead." As I read the book, I practiced implementing her teachings during a couple of challenging conversations, and I experienced a few surprising miracles.

The book dives deeper than typical conflict resolution strategies, helping the reader to understand the feelings, patterns, boundary issues, and lack of self-awareness that create and inflame relational problems.

Having always used books to help me grow in my faith, emotional maturity, and relationship savvy, I found this to be one of the most practically applicable. The "Chart of Feelings" (92) alone was eye-opening, helping me realize that I had only been using five basic descriptors to name any emotion I experienced. In reality, there are hundreds more that would help identify emotions more accurately. Whether believing that I am sad when I am really feeling isolated or thinking that I'm angry when in truth, I'm feeling exposed or overwhelmed, correctly naming emotions has surprising power. On page 75, Nicole says that "…self-awareness is the first step toward getting more of what we really need in life…If we don't express our emotions accurately, they will express themselves for us." Often in ways that aren't helpful at all.

The book and its teachings flow heavily from Unice’s background in counseling and are beneficial for anyone, regardless of their faith. But she also created a six-week Participant’s Guide to walk readers through the biblical principles underlying relational peace. The guide can be used alone or with a group to study and apply the concepts she teaches. 

Even for those who think their relationships are just fine, I recommend The Miracle Moment as a helpful exploration of the complex emotional and relational world in which we live, at work, at home, and in the wider world. As Unice says, "The joyful, easy times are made sweeter by the arguments we've resolved, the hardships we've shared, and the push and pull, the give-and-take of becoming people who can acknowledge hurt, resolve differences, and live out committed love in our families, friendships, and communities." (226) I couldn't agree more. 

Unice, Nicole. (2021). The Miracle Moment. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Momentum, Tyndale House Publishers.